HYDERABAD: Here is good news for handloom weavers of Nalgonda, Yadadri and other districts involved in weaving of Pochampally ‘Ikat’ saris.
The Development Commissioner for Handlooms, under the Union Ministry of Textiles, has come forward to supply Asu machine, for winding of yarn mechanically required for weaving a Pochamapally ‘Tie and Dye’ sari.
Under the Hathkargha Samvarthan Sahayata scheme for technical upgradation, cluster development programme of National Handloom Development Programme, the Central Government would provide 90 % subsidy and the beneficiary would have to bear only 10 % for the purchase of an Asu machine.
Improves productivity
The manual Asu activity, a pre-weaving process. It is a time consuming and physically painful activity mostly done by women.
The process requires the women to move their arms back and forth several thousand times to process the yarn, which is the raw material for weaving the Pochampalli sari in ‘Ikat’ tradition.
After Chintakindi Mallesham invented the Asu machine, it greatly reduced the time taken to supply the processed yarn to weave the saris. Mr.Mallesham was recently awarded Padma Shri for his invention and improving the productivity of women employed in handloom sector.
A release from the Development Commissioner of Handlooms said that the machine was capable of providing processed yarn material required for eight saris in a day against one woman’s output of two saris after working for 10 hours a day.
The department in the past supplied 1,000 Asu machines to the weaving sector in the districts of Nalgonda, Jangaon, Yadadri and Warangal in Telangana State and to the Naupatna area of Odisha.
